Emergency response equipment has been very recently widely publicized in the communications media, particularly on television. Typical is one which features an elderly woman crying "I've fallen and I can't get up". Senior citizens, and particularly the elderly, have turned to such systems, feeling very vulnerable, especially when living alone. While many medical emergencies occur in households each year, those which affect elderly persons and children are especially of concern, particularly when they can range from a serious household accident to an acute illness. Unfortunately, on many occasions, these instances arise when the injured or sick person has no way of alerting someone of the situation. To fill the need, these emergency response products have been developed and advertised. However, several problems have been noted.
Typically, these responsive systems receive, by telephone lines, the report of the emergency situation--and then respond by personnel identifying the location of the party in need, and conveying that to quick-response assistance personnel. These systems, obviously, require the need for telephone equipment, which not every person in need may have--especially the elderly and infirm, on fixed incomes. Secondly, it is widely known that the identification of houses and apartments are difficult at best. Specifically, house numbers are frequently attached to the house itself, and these are consequently often difficult to see from a distance or from a passing vehicle. Particularly pronounced at night, such problem exists even when a prominent house number is provided, but is difficult or impossible to see. Even if illuminated, these house numbers often are attached to homes in suburban areas where the houses are commonly set back from the street and sidewalk by front yards and lawns. As a result, emergency service personnel such as ambulance drivers, firemen and policemen, and medical technicians often lose precious minutes in identifying the proper home during an emergency, and in trying to locate it. Experience has shown that on a great number of occasions, the quick-response personnel have passed the house back-and-forth on several occasions before they can actually identify where the person in need exists in the emergency situation.
A current, more pressing problem, however, concerns the large costs involved in these emergency response situations. In fact, it is not unusual to hear of situations where senior citizens, and the elderly in particular, have been paying $2,500.00-$5,000.00 and more for these emergency response installations, as they usually are sold on a rental basis, of so much each month, beyond an initial installation fee. Newspaper accounts galore have reported the filing of lawsuits by various State Consumer Protection Agencies contending that these operations are nothing more than "ripoffs" with systems that do not operate, do not operate as described during a sales solicitation, and charging exorbitant rates for monthly services, which escalate over the periods of the long-term contracts being sold.